Just when we’d finally got wrapped our heads around balayage and gotten savvy about bronde, a crop of new hair colour trends came straight our way. That’s right, say hello to ‘layage’ and ‘tortoise shell’ hair.
The desired effect of both styles is similar to balayage – it’s all about creating a super natural, effortless look and moving away from the blocky, stripey highlights we all favoured in the Noughties. Layage involves laying your head back on a specially designed table (geddit?), while your colourist free-paints dye onto your hair. The result is an incredibly graduated, very seamless ombre-style effect. Traditional balayage, on the other hand, gives an all-over lift.
Tortoise shell hair is all about using the almost universally-flattering palette of warm brunette and caramel blonde tones, with a few slices of lighter hair worked through. We say universally flattering because it’s a spectrum – just like balayage, there are no hard and fast rules, and your colourist can work with you to find a blend of shades that are just right for your skin tone, still with that naturally mottled effect.
The upshot? Supermodel hair is in. And by that we don’t mean teased, tousled, mega-watt glamour. We mean hair that looks like you’ve been on several Caribbean holidays, not had a lick of dye on it and looks perennially nonchalant. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that?